


the dead have dull eyes

by meios



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Lowercase, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:30:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3860197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meios/pseuds/meios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he is not the one to find her, but he is the one to wake her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the dead have dull eyes

he is not the one to find her, but he is the one to wake her.

 

eyes of dull green blink rapidly, tubes feeding into the side of her neck, her arms, and there are so many bandages, so many new scars to heal, and he tells her not to speak in the thickest voice possible, wavering slightly. he releases the hand he had been clutching in favor of resting the rim of a glass of water at her mouth, mandibles flaring some when she drinks.

 

“h-how long…?” she murmurs, words like sand, grating against the air. her hair is stark white now, and the doctors blame the shock, the stress, black going silver going white, but the flames of the citadel had singed the tips, leaving it uneven, now that it has grown. it frames the shape of her face, the thinness of her jawline.

 

“a few weeks,” he answers. her hand slips from his to move to the side of his face, to drag papery fingertips over his fringe, his crest, stopping short of his mandibles. she gazes at him with a tiredness inside of her, something palpable in the surreal hospital room. “you almost—”

 

she smiles, “not like me to go against orders,” and he laughs a little, leans into her palm, scooting closer until he is barely perched upon the plastic seat a nurse had brought him. the small army of doctors come and go now, stability the number one priority, now that death has been shooed away. “but what happened? we’re—”

 

“i’ll tell you later,” he promises, despite her smile quivering, a sort of guilt overtaking her expression. he leans over to find her mouth, to kiss her, to pinch whatever flow of consciousness that has started in her addled mind.

 

it is the first thing to feel real since the end of the war.

 

he whispers her first name as he draws away, humming lowly within his chest, a hand behind his head, stopping him from going very far. for he knows that she has lost everything over and over again: mindoir, akuze, thessia, earth. and he knows that the slight wheeze in her breath is a sign of panic, a silent plea to stay, and he kisses her again, chaste and slow and gentle.

 

and she mumbles, “garrus,” broken, shattered, lost.

 

“i got you.”

 

“i know.”


End file.
